


Ashes of Time

by zinke



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Songfic (Sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-24
Updated: 2007-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinke/pseuds/zinke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose now knows better than most that wishes and hopes almost never come true, and in her experience the ones that do rarely tend to meet expectations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it; I've written songfic (sort of). *facepalm* Not only that, I've gone and done it in a fandom I've only just dipped my feet into, and for which I've never written fic before. Go figure. The song in question is _Afterglow_ by INXS, one of those songs you can literally _feel_ when you hear it, regardless of whether you can understand why.
> 
> Thanks as always to my illustrious beta caz963, who was good enough to give this the thorough read through it needed, and who did not thwap me about the head for writing this while neglecting my long-suffering _West Wing_ series. Honestly though, this is kind of all her fault – if she hadn't recommended it, I might never have begun watching _Who_ in the first place.

_Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses  
It's you and the roses_

 

Just like every other morning, it's the shrill call of the alarm clock that shocks her into wakefulness. Reaching out from the cocoon of her bedclothes, Rose silences the machine with a single sound slap even as she clings to the lingering hum of a dream whose images can't quite be brought into focus. It's only after the last whispers have slipped away that she rises, giving a listless tug at her tangled pyjama top as she makes her way through the hollow silence of the bedroom and into the bath.

Shower done and make-up on, she slips the final shirt button through its hole and considers herself in the mirror, not sure she fully recognizes the woman staring back at her. She tugs uncomfortably at the cuff of her blouse; the fabric feels rough against the inside of her wrist in a way that her old, wash-worn jackets never did. To tell the truth, it isn't only the starched oxford broadcloth Rose finds irritating – everything here seems to chafe against her senses, leaving her stinging and raw.

She takes the train into town every morning for work, and from the station the bus to Canary Wharf. Not a double-decker, of course – just one of many things that simply never came to be in this world and that she finds herself missing with an inexplicable ferocity. Rose finds that she cherishes the daily ritual, the lengthy trip serving as a welcome reminder of who she used to be – who she at times still wishes she was.

Pete has offered to buy her a car, but to accept would imply a kind of permanence and intimacy Rose isn't yet ready for. The Doctor had of course been right; this Pete Tyler was not her father, and likewise she will never truly be his daughter. But here she isn't Jackie Tyler's daughter anymore either – not legally, in any case. After all, a childless couple doesn't have a twenty-year old daughter simply pop into existence – not without raising questions that her Dad and those at Torchwood would just as soon avoid. On the other hand, an unfortunate niece who lost both of her parents to John Lumic's insanity neatly fits within the limits of local human understanding, and so that too has become a part of the role she's been forced to play.

 

 _Here I am, lost in the ashes of time, but who wants tomorrow?  
In between the longing to hold you again I'm caught in your shadow_

 

Rose doesn't have an office. Instead she has a cubicle, one of many sharing a large open-plan workspace on the tower's 15th floor, with windows for exterior walls where she could watch the progress of the zeppelins across the London skyline if she allowed herself the time or had the inclination. But she's gotten very good these past months at building walls to hide herself; a recently developed talent she'd once – and quite naïvely she now acknowledges – scorned in the Doctor. Living on, as he had once called it, sounded like such a romantic notion when in actuality it was a much more complicated and painful affair.

There isn't much in the way of adventure for her anymore – she's an analyst at Torchwood, which means that the only running Rose is doing these days are archive searches. She's the one people turn to for information – there's no one else in this world that's had the kind of first-hand experience she has and while not everything is the same, apparently the inherent nature of various alien races remains more or less consistent across parallel universes. There are days when she wishes otherwise, when she'll open a file and there on the page is her precious past reborn.

Today it's the Krillitane – though in this place and time they've apparently forgone the wings of the inhabitants of Bethsaal in favour of the needle-sharp horns sported by another species. As she stares, unseeing at the pages spread across her desk, she tells herself that it's the little differences that are helping to ease the pain of these unexpected reminders of the past. She won't yet allow for the alternative – that she's getting used to this place, this life; that she's finally conceded and begun to build a life that doesn't include him.

 

 _As I let you go I will find my way  
I will sacrifice 'til the blinding day when I see your eyes  
Now I'm living in your afterglow_

 

Evenings at home sometimes resemble her most desperate childhood fantasies: a table overflowing with food and drink, her father recounting the highlights of his day while bestowing doting smiles on her mother as she looks on him with pride. And while the scene appears to be everything she'd ever hoped for – family and comfort and love – just beneath the surface lurk the shadowy memories of the price each of them has paid. She now knows better than most that hopes and wishes almost never come true, and in her experience the ones that do rarely tend to meet expectations.

But in spite of that knowledge still she dreams, late at night as she lies awake in the shadowy dark of her bedroom and stares out of the window at the moonlight filtering through the trees. Except now her hopes are to be reunited with another man, lost to her in a world beyond reach. And as she finally drifts through the filmy haze between waking and sleep she imagines he comes back to her, enfolds her in his arms and offers to give her the universe – again. In that moment, she thinks she feels the whisper of wool against her cheek, and she sighs into the fluff of her pillow.

 

 _Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses  
It's you who is closest_

 

The next morning, her alarm clock bleats into the stillness, and her dreams dissipate in the glimmer of the sun against her eyelids. Dutifully she rises for yet another day to fulfill a promise he asked of her what feels like a lifetime ago.

 

*fin.*


End file.
